In 2010, financial consultant Christopher Sheldon was on the road, listening to talk radio. Scott Brown had just defied the odds to become the state’s first Republican U.S. senator in decades, and now here was former state treasurer Joe Malone, talking about, Sheldon recalled, “how government had taken this adversarial view against the private sector.”

That view matched Sheldon’s, who had noticed a change in the direction of the country, “even in Massachusetts… shifting in a more conservative, more business-friendly manner.”

Brown, for whom Sheldon had held some signs, “was the figurehead for those changes,” Sheldon said in a recent interview with the Patriot. Malone’s words prompted him to take the next step and volunteer to work on Malone’s campaign for Congress on the Cape and South Shore.

Somehow, though, “the vibe I saw in the races didn’t match the outcome,” said Sheldon, who became the Malone campaign’s treasurer. His candidate lost in the primary to state Rep. Jeff Perry, who in turn lost to Democrat Bill Keating.

Not ready to call it quits, Sheldon said, he decided to help manage campaigns in the 2012 election cycle. But when he spoke to potential contenders, he found “not everybody wanted to go down to Washington, D.C., every week.”

Eventually, he said, those with whom spoke “started to turn the table around” and ask him to run. “It wasn’t really in my game plan,” Sheldon said, but he came to understand he should give it a try.

An Eagle Scout active in the Boys State and Junior Statesmen of America organizations, Sheldon said he’s always had an interest in public policy. This would be his first campaign for office, but he believes he brings a wealth of experience to the task.

“If you can find another candidate in the state with significant experience in finance, energy, utilities, manufacturing, health care and consumer goods, with that kind of experience at any age, I challenge you to put them in front of me,” Sheldon said. “These are the sectors of the economy most important in the next 10 years.”

Sheldon contrasts his business experience with that of the incumbent. “Cong. Keating was elected a state rep in his twenties,” he said. “He’s been in the public sector essentially his entire life.”

Task one for Sheldon is to “get the economy back on track. No matter what problem you’re looking to solve, if there are no revenues it’s very difficult to solve those problems. Spending cuts and cutting programs can only go so far. As we’ve seen in Greece, cutting spending and increasing revenues through taxes has not worked. The only way to get people back to work is to grow the economy.”

How?

“There’s no simple answer,” Sheldon said. “You create a business-friendly economic climate. Certainly by transparency; you look at every piece of legislation and think of its unintended consequences.”

For Sheldon, transparency extends to the government letting the business community and the general electorate know where it’s headed. Companies and individuals, he said, are “looking over their shoulder waiting for the next shoe to drop because of policy decisions made in Washington, D.C.”

Setting a course for deficit reduction would help, the candidate said, as would “a real serious look at regulations, rolling back some that are strangling small and medium businesses… One of the most anti-business-friendly is the tax code. We need a much more efficient tax code, to strip out a lot of special interests.”

The Affordable Care Act sums up a lot of these issues for Sheldon, who would vote to repeal “Obamacare.”

The legislation, he said, “is going to raise our taxes. Even though it’s billed as universal coverage, it won’t be. People won’t be able to keep their existing health care plans, whether it’s insurance companies not offering them or employers not offering coverage. Employers are saying flat out that if the act is implemented, they’ll take the penalty and allow their employees to go on state-run plans.”

The act, according to Sheldon, has “institutionalized rising health care costs.” It “does nothing to make costs more transparent, nothing to force providers to compete… It essentially locked in our large health care systems and hospitals, costs be damned.”

Sheldon said he’s confident that, in a reformed system, consumers could make informed choices regarding their own care.

“You bought your Mac, I bought an IBM,” Sheldon said. “Consumers make tough decisions every day. When they need to get educated, they do a good job. Consumers are more than capable of making informed health care decisions. If not, there are more than enough people to start a business and help them. The market will sort that out.”

After citing the health care acts faults, Sheldon said “there are parts that are fine. I do believe that people should not be denied coverage for existing conditions. If the market wants it and it seems popular, young adults should stay on their parents’ policy.”

A local issue of major importance to Sheldon is fishing.

“Fishermen are saying catches and the stock level are fine,” he said. “Environmentalists say our model says they’re not. Scientists aren’t that great at catching fish.”

Sheldon said fishermen “aren’t going to kill their business for future generations. They have a vested interest in fishing stocks. The government needs to start working with the fishing industry to develop a plan.”

Most of the issues facing the nation, Sheldon said, “are not Republican or Democratic issues, not liberal or conservative. They’re good government. There are no magic bullets. The magic bullets proposed are almost exclusively liberal or conservative. Good government is middle of the road.”

Information

Born in Massachusetts, lives in Plymouth where he served on the charter commission

Syracuse University graduate

MBA in marketing, finance and competitive strategy from University of Florida